THE RULES

The island "rules" were a fast and loose term used by the writers to NOT explain critical points in their story.

The show runners played things fast and loose, hoping that the momentum of the characters’ story arcs and the whole “good vs. evil” showdown would be enough to appease most fans. But the promise of an intellectual drama was what most fans wanted to see.

One explanation of the island mythology has to be centered in "Across the Sea," the Jacob origin story in Season 6. The semi-explaination what the island was – a sort of container for a very important energy that seemingly links this world with worlds beyond... or something else.  There is a view that the unique "energy" is actually a form of light and water, and if that light goes out and the water stops flowing, so the world is basically end.

Everything magical or fantastic about the Island stems from this energy, and many of the technological oddities found on the Island (the Swan Station from Season 2) are a result of the Dharma Initiative trying to harness and control that energy (i.e., man trying to bend magic and mysticism to the will of modern science).

However, there are some things that were definitely left unexplained: Why did the Man In Black become a smoke monster when he was exposed to the light (was it a manifestation of his corrupted soul?); What is the nature of the “rules” that governed certain aspects of the Island – who could come and go, who could kill who, who was healed from injury (Locke, Rose), who lived forever (Richard). How were these rules established and maintained?

We were vaguely told that the island guardian made up his own rules, but what we came away with were a lot of vague pseudo- explanations. But if Jacob's rules controlled the island, he would never die because that was against the rules. And the randomness of who lived and died on the island, who was saved and punished by the smoke monster, also did not fit into any established rules. So why was MIB was obsessed with “finding a loophole” in order to kill Jacob? And since MIB was NOT Jacob's brother, who Crazy Mother said he could not kill, then Jacob could have destroyed the smoke monster long ago. If Jacob would not allow or could not kill the smoke monster/MIB, then how could Jack and Kate do it?  Some say that since Smokey was connected to the energy source, and when Jack had Desmond “turned off” that energy by re-setting the cork, Smokey "lost" his powers and was merely flesh and blood again. Except that does not make any sense. The cork was in the bottle and MIB still had all his powers. When the cork was removed, MIB still had his powers. Since we don't know how MIB was created in the light cave, nothing is canon.


If Jacob's final rule was "if I die, you can die," then that is not a dramatic loophole for the smoke monster. The smoke monster's statement that he wanted "to leave" the island mirrored Jacob's brother's, but since MIB was not human, where could it actually go if it was tied to the light source?


Without rules, one cannot have order. And with LOST's non-rules, the story is tangled in messy inconsistencies and legitimate questions.